Are other lifeforms watching us?

Do you believe there’s a lifeform on another planet in this universe? Take into account its expansiveness and you could say you’d be naive to think there wasn’t another self-aware life form existing. Naivety would only come by disregarding the endless possibilities that would allow it to happen, such as the size of the universe and it’s sheer amount of planets.

With current observation it is estimated that there are between 1 – 30 billion planets in our galaxy and about 100 billion galaxies in the Universe! That means that with only a one in billion chance, their would currently be a billion other planets with other life forms on them.

Now think about the expansiveness of the universe and apply it to time. It’s scientifically proven that the earth has been around for about 4.5 billion years. and the universe is easily over 12 billion years old. These facts are more true than any other scientific evidence we currently have on the subject. On a rudimentary scale, this type of data is obtained similarly to cutting a tree and telling it’s age from counting it’s rings.

Who’s to say that from one of the other billion life forms, that one of them hasn’t already evolved technologically and biologically millions of years before humans even existed?

What if the creation of one of those planets achieved the sweet-spot of the Drake Equation to allow another life form to already exist and progress way beyond the stage that humans are already at?

There are strong cases for the introduction of nanotechnology and the rise of a “ghost in the machine” that will allow the physical presence of a human to be made redundant. A state where we will exist only as consciences in a super-intelligent mainframe. This foreseeable future is likely to start through a period known as technological singularity.

If this period of evolution is possible within a time frame that can already be foreseen by humans, then take that same time period but shift it back millions of years, and it would’ve already happened, on a planet somewhere else.

If this future already exists somewhere other than our own planet, who’s to say we aren’t already being watched? An easy rebuttal would be to say, why bother watching? Why not just destroy us?

These other super-beings could exist individually, no bigger than a molecule (remember nanotechnology), or an omni-present sentient in an advanced state that cannot be seen with our eyes. Now why would they bother making themselves known? If they’re millions of years ahead, their state of mind would likely be that ending another evolving species would be a step back, or a primitive, selfless act of destruction.

Read through the pages on Wikipedia about anthropic principles where you can go further down the rabbit hole. Hopefully this has been some food for thought, either that, or you think I read too much sci-fi.